Monday, 10 November 2014

IT’S always
fascinating to hear the great favourites of British music conducted by those
from another tradition – Vassily Sinaisky’s interpretations with the BBC
Philharmonic in the past have been great experiences – so the Phil’s present
principal guest conductor’s take on Elgar and Walton was eagerly awaited.

John
Storgårds has the same ability to illuminate aspects of the music others easily
miss, and so it proved with his reading of that most Elgarian of Elgar favourites,
the Cockaigne overture.

Its
portrait of London life may have lacked the pictorialism and sentiment our own
maestros and traditions instinctively bring to it, but the uninhibited approach
to its fruity tuttis, the meticulous adherence to its roller-coaster dynamics, the
disentangling of its interwoven counterpoints, and above all the flair and
skill brought to the expression of its long-breathed phrases, were all a joy.
After a strangely cautious beginning, Storgårds built it to something very
splendid indeed.

Nielsen’s
violin concerto, which followed, was probably more his instinctive territory –
the soloist, Alina Pogostkina, brought a formidable technique to it, though she
was most at home when on her own in the cadenzas rather than synchronizing with
conductor and orchestra. The first movement one, in particular, was the best
part of the whole performance: she made the most of its strident, energetic
display as well as its lyrical gestures.

Back to
British music for the second half, with baritone David Soar and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus
joining the Philharmonic for Walton’s blockbuster cantata, Belshazzar’s Feast.

The
chorus’s contribution was at times a weak spot here. Not particularly numerous,
they were not always totally confident either, and though they had their
moments when singing unaccompanied they were sometimes unable to make much
impact through the curtain of orchestral sound in front of them. Even the shout
of ‘Slain!’, which should send a shock wave through the listener, was
mezzo-forte as heard in the hall.

David Soar
sang clearly and authoritatively – if not quite cutting the figure of an Old
Testament prophet that some singers can create in this piece – and the
orchestra played their part with gusto, resourcefulness and skill. But
Storgårds’ ability to find interest in the details of every texture was perhaps
the greatest virtue of a reading which was somewhat low on dramatic atmosphere
and more of a showpiece for orchestra than anything else.

****

Robert Beale

HALLE ORCHESTRA AND CHOIRBridgewater Hall (November 6)

THIS
concert was a thoughtful attempt to remember the centenary of the First World
War through music written at the time. Not just any music: Butterworth, Elgar,
Bax and Sibelius each had startlingly original things to say in that traumatic
time.

George
Butterworth was dead by the time August 1916 was over (in the Battle
of the Somme), and yet his orchestral rhapsody,
A Shropshire Lad, seems to tell us how it felt to be a survivor. Based on
Housman’s poems about the slain of the Boer War, it shares with them a strange
prescience of things to come. The Hallé’s playing of this with Sir Mark Elder
is on record already and about the loveliest reading of it there could be – and
it was again, with glowing colours and vivid contrasts.

Elgar’s big
piece for soprano, choir and orchestra, For The Fallen (setting Laurence
Binyon’s poetry, including the famous ‘They shall grow not old …’ verse) was
written while the slaughter was still going on. Its fascination lies in its agonised
attempt to capture a faith that there was some value in all the sacrifice – the
only way to think of it then, obscene though it may seem from our distance in
history.

Sir Mark
was alert to every nuance of drama in its pages, and was rewarded with dramatic
and weighty singing from the Hallé Choir, as well as profound meditative
moments from both choir and orchestra. No lugubrious solemnity here – the
marching feet were jaunty and the funeral music proud as Siegfried’s.

Rachel
Nicholls’ powerful, warm soprano brought nobility and humanity to the
declamation, and the final pages reached a height of feeling that seared the
soul.

After that,
Bax’s In Memoriam seemed more a recollection in tranquillity, and its soaring
melody a tribute to the human spirit (as indeed it was – he was commemorating
an Irish patriot whom we shot in 1916). The Hallé are masters of this kind of sentiment,
and the darting woodwind over soft-sweet strings were hauntingly beautiful.

Then
Sibelius’s fifth – a favourite now, but in 1915 music that struggled for
optimism in a bleak landscape. There was life in Sir Mark’s reading from the
start, and, notwithstanding moments of slipperiness, by the time the symphony
reached its triumphant end, the laments and menacing dissonances that almost
overtake it had all fallen into place – as they should.